


Be Your Detonator

by galacticAcolyte (coffee_goth)



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killjoys, Dystopian society, F/F, F/M, Killjoystuck, M/M, Near Future, basically they're all rebels in the desert, my chemical romance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_goth/pseuds/galacticAcolyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The date is June 8, 2018. The United States of America have not existed for nine years.<br/>On October 13, 2012, the Helium Wars began.<br/>On December 21, 2012, the bombs fell and killed ninety-eight percent of the world's population.<br/>On December 24, 2012, Better Living Industries took control of California.<br/>On July 23, 2014, four men escaped Battery City and formed the rebel group the Fabulous Killjoys, stationed in the Mojave Desert.<br/>And today, John, Rose, Dave and Jade are determined to find and join them.</p><p>(crossover fic with the album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by My Chemical Romance)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look Alive, Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, guys! This is my first time writing for Homestuck, so this is kind of an experiment for me. It's really just a project to help me transition between fanbases, because I've been firmly cemented in the My Chemical Romance fandom for the past few years and I think it's time for me to branch out. I don't know if there are many MCR and Homestuck fans out there, but you really don't need to know anything about the album at all to read the fic! It's probably going to be a bit confusing in the beginning, so if you have any questions, please just ask and I'll try to explain it better :) Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

When John wakes up in the desert, he’s scared.  
It’s a visceral emotion, stemming from a billion different thoughts vying for his attention, but all he can do is lie in the soft, grainy sand and stare up at the sun burning down on him from the huge expanse of blue that is the desert sky.  
He stays like that for a while, trying to sort through all the thoughts in his head, before he finds the will to push himself up and look around. His heart sinks when his fear is confirmed. Dave, Rose and Jade aren’t lying next to him, similarly passed out in the golden desert; they’re not anywhere in sight—in fact, he can’t spot a single living thing.  
John pulls himself to his feet with difficulty, trying to recall exactly what had happened the night before. The memories were there in bits and pieces, but he couldn't form any coherent thoughts. There was a blur of white on the road behind him, a neon shot flashing past his head, a scream that he’s sure must have come from Jade telling him to run. But he doesn't know what any of it means, except that now he’s stuck in the fucking Mojave Desert alone, with no food or water, no plan, and no idea why the fuck he was such an idiot in the first place.  
*  
When Rose wakes up in the desert, she’s anxious.  
Her eyes fly open, and she glances to the side, relaxing slightly when she sees Jade’s tiny form curled up next to her. Jade’s jet-black hair is matted with grains of sand, her tan skin weathered already from the unforgiving sunlight. The scorch mark on her arm is a virulent, festering red.  
They need to find John and Dave, Rose thinks. They could be hurt even worse than Jade is, or lying dead on the side of Route Guano somewhere. They hadn't planned anything beyond getting out of Battery City, and that had been their downfall. They were naïve enough to assume that as soon as they hit the Zones, the Fabulous Killjoys would magically find them. All they got was mile after mile of sand and deserted road, and then the Draculoids started coming.  
Their little group had splintered barely an hour into their escape, and now Jade was hurt and John and Dave were gone. Rose let her head fall into her hands.  
*  
When Dave wakes up in the desert, he’s shocked.  
He looks around, and when he sees there’s no one there to hear it, he lets out a jubilant whoop, letting the sound ring through the barren landscape. They’d done it. They’d managed to get out of Battery City all on their own. They were free.  
It registers to him a moment later that none of the three best friends he left BL/ind’s fortress of a city with were anywhere near him, but it barely fazed him. He knew he could find them later. For now, all he wants to do is run around his new home, screaming and praising his new freedom.  
It was supposed to be impossible to get out of the city. Ever since the first Killjoys escaped nearly four years ago, Better Living Industries had cracked down on security. They couldn't afford to let any more freethinkers out and potentially strengthen the rebel movement even more. The Fabulous Killjoys were already too big of a threat to their supreme authority.  
Supposed to be impossible, Dave thinks smugly. Take that, Airi Isoda.  
*  
John spends a long time lying in the sand, staring at the sun from behind his dirty glasses and wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do next. He can’t try to contact his friends with his BL/ind-issued communication device; they’d track the signal and he’d be dragged off to the Draculoid Reformation Facility in a matter of minutes. Maybe Dave could reprogram the devices, but John knows as much about that as he does about Dave’s location. He has no idea where any of them might be. They might not even be alive.  
He decides he has to retrace his steps, only to realize he doesn't know how he even ended up lying in that particular drift of sand in the first place. There are no footsteps or other marks in the sand; not even bloodstains. There are no landmarks in the desert as far as he can see, and he can see pretty damn far, because the air isn't clouded with smoke or chemicals or any of the pollutants so characteristic of Battery City. He vaguely remembers a few things flashing by as he and his friends raced in the night before—a gas station with a Pegasus logo; an abandoned motel with a dirty white van parked in front; a warehouse with broken windows and drifts of dust piled up against the door—but none of them are anywhere in sight.  
After a while, the thirst takes over and he finally finds the will to push himself up from out of the sand. His throat is parched as dry as the scenery around him from breathing in rough desert air filled with dust. His breaths are raspy, and he doubles over coughing as soon as he finds his feet. The right side of his torso aches from the hit it took from a Draculoid’s raygun the night before. He’s falling apart.  
He grits his teeth and starts walking.  
*  
It takes a while for Jade to wake up. When she finally does, it’s with a series of tiny yawns and stretches as she seems to come to terms with her new location. Rose watches over her protectively.  
“Dave?” Jade murmurs, rubbing at her eyes. She’d knocked her glasses off sometime during the night, and Rose picks them up and places them gently on the bridge of her nose.  
“Just me,” Rose answers quietly. “Dave got lost. John, too.”  
Jade sits up, pressing one hand to her back and letting the injured one hang limp at her side. She looks around. “Oh no,” she says slowly, and then repeats it again, louder this time. “Oh, no. Rose, what happened last night?”  
“You don’t remember?” Rose sighs and wraps her arm around Jade, minding her injured arm. “We were being chased. You got hurt.”  
“Oh.” Jade looks down at her arm and realization dawns on her face. She grimaces.  
Rose rubs her side. “Does it hurt?”  
“Not much,” says Jade. “It just looks pretty scary, doesn't it?”  
Rose bites her lip. It does look scary, angry red and glistening, but she doesn't want to tell Jade that. “You’ll be fine,” she reassures her. “We all will be.”  
“Okay,” Jade agrees easily. She springs to her feet, and Rose stares at her wistfully, wishing she could be as exuberantly careless as Jade is.  
*  
“Pick up, asshole,” Dave mumbles, gritting his teeth. He scuffs the toe of his sneaker in a drift of sand.  
The phone rings and rings, but Jade’s perky voice never cuts through. After an agonizing thirty seconds it switches to a BL/ind-automated message telling him to contact an official for the operator’s whereabouts.  
“Fuck it,” groans Dave, and drops the phone. It glitters against the sand, sterile and white and a reminder of everything he’s trying to get away from. Suddenly, he wants to smash it.  
Instead, he bends down and keys in a different number, crossing his fingers behind his back. It’s probably risky calling other people out here, but he jailbroke his phone months ago in Battery City. His calls weren't tracked anymore; but he has no idea about the recipients.  
After the third ring, he finally picks up. “Dave?” John says, sounding tired and run down, and Dave could burst into tears because it’s such a damn relief to hear his best friend’s voice.  
“Start walking,” Dave tells him shortly. “It’s harder for them to get a trace if you’re moving.”  
There’s the sound of static on the other end, and then John says “Where are you? I lost Jade and Rose last night and somehow I ended up passed out in a sand dune and I—“  
“Jade and Rose aren't with you?” Dave asks, a bit desperately. “Well, shit, Egbert.”  
“I know,” John sighs.  
Dave sits down heavily, wincing as his ass hits the burning sand. “Do you have any idea where you are?” he asks.  
“Nope,” John says. “Just sand.”  
“Okay.” Dave exhales again and leans back, staring up at the sun. “Listen. I can see Route Guano from where I am. You try to find it too. When you get there, keep walking east till you hit the end of the Getaway Mile and then turn around. I’ll walk the other way. We've got to hit each other sometime.”  
There’s more static and John coughs dryly. “Alright,” he says finally.  
“I’ll stay on the phone till you find the highway,” Dave tells him. “I’ll see you soon, okay? And then we can look for the girls. It’s gonna be okay, man. We’re free.”  
*  
It takes John what feels like forever to find Route Guano. His throat is even drier by the time his feet hit the asphalt, and he’s seriously cursing his lack of foresight in not bringing food and water. They really didn't think this through at all—just some stupid kids trying to follow in the steps of much greater people who came before them.  
I wonder if the Fabulous Killjoys had to put up with this, he thinks as he stumbles onto the highway, his feet tripping over the hard road after spending so long on shifting sand. Of course they didn't; they were probably a hell of a lot smarter than him. You don’t survive for four years in the Zones by being an idiot.  
He’s so tired that he can barely remember which way is east along the highway. Once he reminds himself that there’s a reason for the green mile markers spaced along the length of the road, he realizes he’s nowhere near the Getaway Mile, which is much farther back near the city. They must have come a long way the night before.  
He hopes that Dave isn't this far back too, otherwise they’d both be trudging towards the Getaway Mile for no reason; though maybe if he’s lucky, they’ll meet up before he has to walk the whole way there. The Getaway Mile is mile seventy-four—something any good zonerunner should know—and he’s currently at one-hundred-something; he hasn't bothered checking in an hour because it just makes him even more tired. It’s also dangerously close to Battery City.  
It wasn't supposed to happen like this, John thinks bitterly. This has to be a bad omen. Not even a day in the Zones and they had already fucked up.  
*  
“What should we do now?” Jade asks, staring up at Rose. Her head is nestled in Rose’s lap and her fingers are trailing through the sand, letting minuscule grains drip through her fingertips.  
Rose shrugs and combs her fingers through Jade’s tangled black hair. “Find the guys, I guess,” she says. “We should probably get to Route Guano. Damn, we should have thought about a rendezvous point before running off last night.”  
Jade nods and hums under her breath. It’s a familiar song to both of them; one of the ones that the Killjoy radio station has on regular rotation. They all listened to the station religiously before leaving Battery City.  
The song Jade is humming is the bright, sparkling one about running away. Rose joins in with her after a moment, and they harmonize in the dusty air, their voices filling the sandy void.  
“Getaway Mile,” Rose said suddenly, halfway through the song.  
Jade furrows her eyebrows and stopped singing. “What about it?”  
“I bet that’s where they are.” Rose gently moves Jade’s head off of her lap and stands up. “That’s the symbol, right? It’s the promise of freedom.”  
*  
Dave really wishes he had some goddamn apple juice.  
At least there was apple juice in Battery City, mixed in with the drones and Draculoids and blue-and-white pills. There isn't anything out here, and he’s not sure which is worse—mind control or nothing at all.  
He’s been walking alone for too long now, so long that the sun is beginning to drop in the sky. It’s still burning hot, but the desert is subject to vicious temperature changes without warning—that he knows from experience. He doesn't have a jacket with him, just his t-shirt.  
The radiation out here is worse, too, and the dust gets into everything. He feels like he’s choking half the time. Maybe there’s something to be said for BL/ind’s ridiculously sterile and white agenda, after all.  
And he hasn't found John. He’d made three passes on the Mile already, one east and two west, but there had been nobody. He knows this part of the desert by heart now.  
At least there haven’t been any Draculoids so far, he thinks, and then bites his tongue and crosses his fingers because it would be just his damn luck if they showed up now, wouldn't it? He doesn't even have the will to fight anymore. If something comes, he’ll give in like the weakling he is, because he was just fooling himself to think he could live out there with no food and no shelter and no plans.  
There’s something moving in the distance, and it isn't the shifting desert sands. Dave almost hopes it’s a BL/ind official. At least there’s no sand in the Draculoid reformation facility.  
*  
It’s unnaturally quiet in the desert. That’s John’s foremost thought as he trudges along the barren strip of asphalt. It’s quiet and still except for the wind. The scene is exactly the opposite of what he thought it would be like from the radio broadcasts and the legends. Assuming the Fabulous Killjoys spent all their time zonerunning was a bit ludicrous, he admitted, but still, he thought he’d have seen something by now.  
It’s so quiet that the first faint shout in the distance makes John jump. He nearly turns around and runs until he realizes that would only take him back towards Battery City, and anyway, he has no idea who was shouting. Maybe it was just a desert owl. It was nearly nightfall, anyway; do owls even live in the desert?  
From this distance, he can’t tell if the figure’s dressed in white or wearing a rubber face mask or toting a ray gun. They’re not running towards him and they’re not aiming at his head, so he figures he’s safe for the time being. They’re still shouting at him, though, and as he draws nearer the unintelligible screams turn into a string of curses.  
“…and fuck you and your government,” the guy shrieks, and John doesn't know why that voice is so familiar. “Fuck your stupid fucking face masks, they look fucking stupid, and fuck your rules and your goddamn city!”  
“Dave?” John yells incredulously.  
The stream of swearing cuts off, and then the figure does start running, babbling something that sounds kind of like his name until he throws himself at John and nearly suffocates him.  
“Jesus christ I've been looking for you for forever,” Dave exclaims. “Where the fuck have you been, dude? I nearly died, okay? Don’t ever do that to me again, man. Just don’t.”  
John laughs and hugs him tighter.  
*  
Jade absolutely loves the desert.  
It’s shocking for her to realize. She never wanted to come out here, unlike her friends. BL/ind is terrifying and the city is horrible, but Jade isn't a confrontational person; the Killjoy lifestyle isn't one she would have chosen on her own. The only reason she’s here is because of her friends. Mostly because of Dave, if she has to admit it, but either way, she’s just following the only people left who love her. She was fully expecting to hate it.  
But the desert—that’s something else. Jade had been born before the start of the Helium Wars, but it had been nearly ten years since the bombs fell and the world exploded into flame. She had lived in Battery City since she was eight, hadn't seen her parents or her home or the outside world since she was eight. All she had known was white. It changed a little when Dave got her to stop taking the pills every day, but it had never been the same as it was before the war. Until now, that is.  
She takes it all in with wide-eyed wonder. It feels like she’s seven again instead of seventeen, and she’s standing at the beach behind her house, surrounded by sun and dunes. The sand is soft and golden beneath her feet—she’d taken off her sneakers hours ago—and the plants, no matter how sparse or prickly, are something she hasn't seen in years. Her favorite part, though, is the sky. Early in the day, when she first woke up, it was a bright and clear robin’s-egg blue, a vast, cloudless expanse that covered everything she could see. Now, it’s an elegant and velvety violet tinged with vibrant fuchsia at the edges of the horizon. Countless pinpricks of starlight above poke through the velvet.  
“Stop gawking,” Rose says sharply. “We have to find somewhere to stay by nightfall.”  
Jade sighs and sends one more wistful glance skyward before trudging on.  
*  
They find an abandoned gas station just after nightfall. John thinks he recognizes the logo from the night before, though it flashed by too quickly for him to get a proper look. This station is marked with a white horse and the words “Dead Pegasus,” though he’s pretty sure that wasn't the original name, especially since the word “Dead” is spray painted on in crimson red.  
The station’s convenience store is warm enough. It was warmer than the temperature in the desert, at least, which had dropped to unbearably chilly once the sun went down. As John searched through the empty shelves for anything edible while Dave jacked the raygun dispenser outside for weapons, he couldn't help but wonder if Jade and Rose were okay. With any luck, they’d found Party Poison and his Killjoy gang by now, or were at least somewhere warm and protected. He didn't want to think of the alternative. The night before had been bad enough.  
His extensive search turns up a few packets of Hostess cakes that were missed by whoever already raided the store. It sends a chill of excitement down his spine when he realizes the actual Fabulous Killjoys might have stood in the exact spot he is now, decked out in their colorful garb and clutching their rayguns to their sides while they talked about motorbabies and firefights. There are cigarettes, too, and a few magazines; they’re all ancient though. That’s the issue with living in an unpopulated area, John thinks. This place hasn't seen real business since 2012.  
Hostess food is supposed to have a shelf life of seven years, right? He does the calculation in his head and realizes that even the preservative-loaded cakes would have gone off by now, but his stomach is protesting loudly, and he hasn't eaten since his last tasteless, rubbery meal in Battery City over twenty-four hours ago. He and Dave would be okay with something a little stale. Freedom comes with a price.  
*  
Rose doesn't think she can take another step towards the mountains in the distance. Every mile towards them makes the horizon seem even farther away, and she’s ready to give up. Jade has stopped talking, which leaves a strange silence in the air since the last six hours have been filled with her optimistic drivel. Without it, Rose is barely sure if she’s still alive, or if she’s passed out and this is all an illusion brought on from the hunger and the cold.  
She shivers and bitterly wishes she had something to wear besides white scrubs. They were fine in Battery City, which was climate-controlled and never sunk below a perfect sixty-five degrees, but she’d mistakenly assumed that the desert would be warm all the time. She had no way of knowing better. Nobody had been to the desert and come back alive. Not even the Fabulous Killjoys themselves.  
If they even exist.  
“Rose,” Jade says softly. “Rose, I think I see something.”  
“Fuck.” Rose jerks her head up and scans the area, her vision immediately sharpening as she tries to catch any glimpses of white. “Where? How fast are they moving?”  
“I don’t think it’s a person,” Jade says. She points at something in the sky. It looks like a sign from here, though Rose can’t be sure.  
Jade bites her lip and rubs at her arms. She’s probably even colder than Rose is; she has a short-sleeved shirt on and a thin skirt, and Rose knows she’s most likely freezing. “Do we risk it?”  
“Yes,” Rose tells her resolutely. Maybe it’s foolhardy, but right now, it’s their only chance.  
*  
“Do you think they’re alright?”  
John giggles nervously to hide how unsure he is . “That’s a loaded question, Dave.”  
Dave blows a ring of smoke and leans back, letting his head thunk on the bottom of the counter. John hadn't wanted the cigarettes, but Dave said he needed something to calm his nerves, he didn't care if they were addictive.  
“Rose is smart,” he says, almost as if he’s trying to reassure himself. “She’ll figure something out. And they’re both strong.”  
John nods and swallows down the lump in his throat.  
“Goddammit, John,” Dave says thickly, and John realizes that behind his shades, tears are probably pricking at his eyes. “I don’t know what I’ll do without her.”  
“She’s fine,” John says softly. But he doesn't know that for sure.  
*  
She hugs herself and pretends Dave’s arms are around her instead.  
*  
The sign is farther away than it initially seemed, but Jade’s learning that’s how everything in the desert looks. It takes what feels like forever for them to get there, and Jade is about to pass out by the time they’re finally standing underneath the circular sign she saw before. There’s a little store in front of them, its’ sliding glass doors smashed in and its’ walls scarred with scorch marks from raygun lasers. It doesn’t look safe at all. Jade is infinitely glad that they found it.  
“Look, don’t get disappointed if there’s nothing there,” Rose tells her as they approach. “It’s a place for us to stay. Maybe there’s some food, if we’re lucky. We can find Dave and John tomorrow. I promise.”  
Jade nods silently.  
Rose goes in first, her raised fists as her only line of defense. If there are Draculoids or drones or anything in the store, then she’s as good as dead. It hits Jade how ridiculously, utterly unprotected they are and how if they come across the white suits a second time, they aren't going to come out of it alive.  
“Coast is—“ Rose starts to say, but then breaks off. “Shit. Get back.”  
Jade drops to the ground, her heart in her throat.  
She can hear scuffling inside the store, aware that whoever is in there must have heard Rose and must be coming for them. They never stood a chance. She’s never going to meet Fun Ghoul or Kobra Kid, and she was mad to think so. She’s never even going to see Dave again.  
“Stay back, and I won’t hurt you,” Rose yells. Her voice is trembling.  
Someone curses.  
“Rose?”  
“What—“ Rose asks, bewildered, and then screams and disappears from sight. Jade nearly sobs.  
“Is she with you?” the voice asks hurriedly, and then there’s the squeaking sound of sneakers and someone coughs and Jade curls her hands into fists and stands up and prepares to fight—  
And falls into Dave’s arms, shocked and sobbing and clutching his shirt, and nothing has ever felt this good.


	2. Crash and Burn, Young and Loaded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out. And sorry it's so full of background information. We get new characters (that are actually from Homestuck) next chapter.  
> Cherri Cola, Doctor Death Defying, and Show Pony are characters from the canon Danger Days universe. There are some pretty great links here if you want some explanation on the Zones and the characters mentioned: http://poisonousparty.livejournal.com/2369.html and the Killjoy slang dictionary I use while writing is here: http://www.mcrquotes.co.uk/post/4778669043/killjoy-danger-days-dictionary-with-definitions  
> One last thing: KILLJOY CODE NAMES. I'm having trouble with them, and I'd love suggestions or headcanon names for any or all characters. There's a big chance that if you suggest one, it'll be used, since all of mine are total shit.  
> Finally: Enjoy the chapter!

When Jade wakes up the next morning, there is sunlight streaming through the grimy windows and casting strange patterns across her skin. None of her friends are conscious yet, which doesn’t surprise her. She’s always been a light sleeper. She sits and watches the dust motes float through the late morning air lazily and rests her head on Dave’s chest while she waits for him to come to.   
When he does, he cracks open an eye and stares at her from behind his inscrutable shades before pulling her close. “Fucking thought I lost you,” he muttered. “It was terrifying, Jade.”  
“We’re safe now,” Jade reassures him. Even if it’s not completely true, she isn’t going to spoil the peaceful morning with nightmares about what could have happened instead. She knows they still don’t have a purpose, don’t know where they’re going or how they’re going to find food and a place to stay besides this ravaged, dusty gas station store, but for now, she’s content, and she wants Dave to be content, too.  
He falls into silence after that, and they stay there companionably, half-embracing and half-leaning against the dirty counter behind them as John and Rose slumber on. Jade almost doesn’t want them to wake up—when they do, then they’ll have to talk about what to do next, and that will shatter her fragile peace. But she’s perversely excited at the same time. The Killjoys are somewhat of a legend in Battery City. Some think they’re vagrants that threaten the city’s ‘peace,’; some think what they’re trying to do is noble, though they would never admit it out loud; some believe they don’t even exist and they’re an urban legend created by BL/ind to scare their citizens into submission—as if they weren’t already submissive enough. Jade herself is positive they exist. She woke up one night two years ago to gunshots outside her window, and when she looked out, caught only a curly mass of hair and an American flag receding down the sidewalk. She’s sure now from the posters covering the city that it was Jet Star himself, one of the fabled Fabulous Killjoys, and ever since, he’s haunted her dreams.  
She’s never heard of anyone else escaping the city after the first four, but she’s also never heard of any of them being caught, and seeing as pictures of the four men with large red X’s running across their faces are still splattered all over the city, they seem to have eluded BL/ind this far. At first, she thought Dave was crazy when he told her about John’s plan to find them. A part of her still does. But it makes more sense than staying in that horrible, sterile city, where the pills took every part of you but the breath from your lips. At least out here she can die free.  
And she’s going to die soon, isn’t she? It was pretty far-fetched to think they were actually going to find the mysterious rebels. There’s a good reason they’ve never been caught.   
A noise outside startles her out of her rather morbid thoughts, and Jade is immediately on the defensive again. “Did you hear that?” she whispers to Dave, picking her head up off his chest.  
Dave frowns. “Hear what?”  
“There’s something—“ Jade begins to tell him, but then the sound of footsteps fills the air, and she bites her lip to keep from crying out.  
Yeah, she knew they were going to die quickly.  
Dave pushes her behind the counter and stands up in one fluid motion, and Jade is shocked to see him draw a white raygun from the waistband of his jeans. He’d been carrying a weapon all night and she hadn’t even noticed. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot,” Dave says in a shaky voice. His hands are trembling. There’s no way he’ll be able to aim properly.  
At his feet, John and Rose begin to stir. “Dave? What’s going on?” John asks sleepily.  
Jade stands up too. She isn’t going down without a fight.  
The woman Dave is aiming at arches one eyebrow at them, her expression inscrutable behind a pair of dark sunglasses. She has a hot pink raygun in each hand, and both are pointed straight at Dave’s head. Her hands aren’t trembling.  
“What’ve we got here?” she asks, her voice amused. “Some city slickers lost their way? That’s a sure way to get ghosted in two point three flat, tumbleweed.”  
“I don’t—“ Dave swallows audibly. “What are you saying?”  
The woman laughs patronizingly and sheathes her rayguns. “Don’t even know how to shoot a zapper, do ya? You ain’t gonna make it a day out here like that.”  
“Who the fuck are you?” shouts Dave. His finger’s shaking on the trigger.   
The woman flips her sheet of dirty blonde hair and hooks a finger around her multicolored headphones, pulling them off. “Agent Cherri Cola, Crash Queen and Zonerunner. Make some noise.”  
After a long, tense silence, John says “What the fuck?”  
Cherri Cola—or whoever she is—sighs. “You really know jackshit, don’t ya? How long you been running?”  
“Since we left the city?” Rose frowns. “ A little over a day.”  
“Yeah, guess that’d explain it.” Cherri Cola steps forward and plucks the gun from Dave’s hands with a wry grin. “Put that thing down, kid, you’re makin’ me nervous.”  
Dave lets it go without protest.  
Cherri Cola steps back and leans against a magazine rack, surveying the four of them casually. “So what?” she asks. “You lookin’ to become zonerunners too?”  
They all glance at each other, waiting for someone to speak up, before Rose tells her “We’re looking for the Fabulous Killjoys. Do you know where we can find them?”  
Cherri Cola laughs. The sound grates against Jade’s ears. “You ain’t gonna find the Fabulous Killjoys unless they wanna be found, Blondie, and they don’t wanna be found.”  
“What do you know about the Killjoys?” Rose asks sharply.  
The blonde woman grins. Her teeth are small and stained from cigarette smoke.   
“If you haven’t figured it out by now, honey, I am a Killjoy.”  
Jade doesn’t know whether to laugh or call bullshit or just tune her out before her brain combusts from confusion.  
“Are you Kobra Kid?” John bursts out. “I didn’t know you were a girl! I thought…”  
Cherri Cola waves her hand dismissively. “Oh, please. Kobra wishes he were me. No, kid, I ain’t fuckin’ Kobra Kid. Jeez, we really gotta get you lot caught up on this shit. Whaddaya know about us Killjoys?”  
“Well,” Rose begins. “There are four of you, right? Party Poison, Kobra Kid, Fun Ghoul, and Jet Star.” She counts them off on her fingers as she names them. “And you live in the desert and annoy the government sometimes.”  
“Wrong.” Cherri Cola smirks. “There are four Fabulous Killjoys. They were the first ones out here, yeah, but definitely not the last ones. I think it’s closer to sixty.”  
Sixty.  
Jade can feel her jaw drop. All this time, there have been sixty people—maybe more—living in the desert, and nobody in the city knew about them. Sixty people ran away Battery City before them. Sixty. Suddenly, she doesn’t feel like their escape was so amazing anymore.  
“We’ve got a load’a groups out here. There’s the Fab Four, who you obviously know about, but we’ve got the Dust Angels, the Ghost Gunners, the Motorbabies out in Zone Four…and the Crash Queens, of course. Only the best Killjoys since Party Poison and his gang.” She smiles at them wickedly. “If you’re lookin’ to get set up as zonerunners, don’t go lookin’ for Poison. Ya gotta find Doctor Death Defying. He’s the rat in charge’a the airwaves. Lucky for you, his friend Show Pony comes runnin’ through here every afternoon. Last stop on the Battery City Express and all that. If ya get lost, he’s smack in the middle’a Zone Three, due west from the city. Just follow Route Guano.”  
There’s so much that confuses Jade about the supposed Killjoy’s speech that she doesn’t even know where to begin. But mixed in with that confusion is excitement and wonder and curiosity. She wants to know what the Zones are and who Doctor Death Defying is and how the Killjoy groups work. She wants to be Cherri Cola—or at least, be a seasoned rebel like she is.  
“Who’s Doctor Death Defying?” John asks, voicing at least one of the questions Jade knows is rolling about in everyone’s head.  
Cherri Cola grins. “The DJ. He’s the real leader.”  
As soon as she says that, a specific set of memories flash through Jade’s mind. A low, rough voice, an undecorated room, a small group of friends—the ones surrounding her now. Frenetic rock music played at a barely audible level and static. Always static. Radios weren’t supposed to exist in Battery City, but Dave had a shitty little portable transistor that he would bring to John’s apartment occasionally. They couldn’t play it too loud, for fear of being overheard and caught, but that didn’t stop them from listening to the only radio station they could find whenever they got the chance.  
It was purely by accident that they found the station. Dave missed his music, and back when they were all still taking the pills and thinking BL/ind had created a perfect society he had tried tuning the radio on a whim. Jade remembers what happened next with surprising clarity. She was the only one with him when for the first time, they heard a gruff voice coming in and out of focus through the waves of static. They later realized it was a rebel radio station. Soon after, they followed the mysterious DJ’s advice and began to flush their daily allotment of blue-and-white pills—pills they had constantly been told would keep them healthy and mentally acute—down the toilet.  
Doctor Death Defying—the man who, in essence, had given them their minds back.  
“You think we should go meet him?” asks Jade in shock.  
“All Killjoys meet him sooner or later, hon,” Cherri Cola tells her. “He’s our man. You gotta listen to Doctor D. Sometimes, that goddamn radio station is the only thing that keeps us together.”  
“We don’t have a radio,” Dave interjects.  
Cherri Cola throws Jade her headphones and winks. “Now you do,” she says.  
Jade turns the clunky headphones over in her hands. They’re made of hard plastic, painted with mottled pinks and oranges and yellows. It’s like holding an exploding rainbow in her hands.  
“Those’ll connect to Doctor D no matter what,” Cherri Cola says. “Treat ‘em well, chickadee.”  
She turns her back, the white vinyl diamond on the back of her pink jacket catching the faint sunlight streaming through the grimy window, and slips her sunglasses down over her eyes. “Keep running, dust angels,” she calls.  
“Are you leaving?” Jade asks desperately. She throws her hand out toward the retreating rebel, as if it could somehow get her to stay.  
Cherri Cola glances back at her. “I got things to do rather than talk to some fresh city rats, babe.”  
“But we still have no idea what to do!” says Rose angrily.  
The Killjoy shrugs. “I figured it out on my own. So did Party Poison and the Fabulous Killjoys, and so did everyone else. But if you don’t find anywhere else, there’s a place on the edge’a Zone Four that got dusted out a few days ago. Crash there. Find Doctor D, and you can figure it out from there.”  
She breezes out of the store before they can stop her again, and a moment later, Jade hears a motorcycle roar to life outside of the store. It kicks up a wall of dust as Cherri Cola peels out of the store, leaving them standing in awkward silence, avoiding each others’ gazes.  
“Well, fuck,” Dave says.  
“Load of help that was,” Rose bursts out angrily. “She bursts in and threatens to kill us, shoots down all our plans, and then leaves again without even telling us anything useful?! We don’t even know what the Zones are!”  
Jade runs her thumb over the plastic shell of one of the headphone speakers. “We’ve got these,” she says softly.  
“And what good are those going to do us?” asks Rose crossly.  
“Let’s find out,” Jade replies, and slips them over her ears.  
Immediately, her head is enveloped in a cloud of static. She almost rips the headphones from her ears because it’s so loud. For a moment, she thinks Cherri Cola must have screwed them over, because nobody could live with this noise in their ears all the time. But then the voice cuts through—the one she remembers from her time in Battery City. By now, it’s almost comforting to hear it.  
“Alright, dust angels, here’s the four-one-one from Zone Three. The Rubberburners had a clap with a horde of Dracs in Zone One early this morning. Avoid the city till Korse and his crew settle down. No recon, no raids. Simmer down and stay tight. That motherfucker Mad Gear is bitching at me to remind you about the blowout at the Hyper Thrust tonight. Keep your eyes out for him and his Missile Kid.”  
Jade furrows her eyebrows as her friends stare at her expectantly. She’s almost used to the DJ’s weird desert lingo by now, but that doesn’t make it any easier for her to decipher. All she’s getting from his speech is to stay away from the city, which she already knew.  
“And a message from our man Party Poison himself.”  
Suddenly, Jade was all ears.  
“Course he ain’t gonna make the broadcast himself. Too busy dusting Scarecrows for that. But he wanted our listeners to keep an eye out for new zone rats. Show ‘em the ropes. We got reports coming in about some lost little Ritalin rats hanging around the Dead Pegasus. If you’re there, tumbleweeds, hang on—I’m sending Show Pony to get you. Try not to get ghosted in the meantime.”  
Jade’s head is spinning. She’s aware of all her friends staring at her, their eyes full of unasked questions, but she just feels dizzy and faint. News travels really quickly in the Zones, apparently.  
“Keep your boots tight, keep your gun close, and die with your mask on if you have to,” Doctor Death Defying announces in a strong voice. “Keep running.”  
“Keep running,” Jade mouths to herself.  
Dave puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “What did he say?”  
Jade swallows. “He knows we’re here. He’s sending someone out to get us soon. Par-I think Party Poison heard about us too, but I don’t know how.”  
Everyone’s eyes widen significantly. The sight would have been comical if the moment wasn’t so tense already. “Party Poison?” John asks, disbelieving.  
Jade nods. “There was a message from him. I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, but I understood that part. “  
“So we have to wait for this guy Doctor D is sending,” Dave says. “We’re like sitting ducks here. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”  
“What other options do we have?” interjects Rose.   
Dave sighs despondently. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna go see if I can jack any more guns from that machine.”  
Jade watches his retreating back sadly, wishing she could do something to help. He hasn’t been the same since they met up again. He’s more defensive, more on edge than any Dave she’d ever known before. They’d all changed after they abandoned the pills, but that was different—that was a good change. They’d all been happier. Now, Dave was just hopeless.  
“He was worried about you,” John says, looking at her with worried eyes. Her listless staring must look odd to both him and Rose. “I think he’s just glad you’re fine. And worried he’ll lose you again.”  
Jade bites at her lip so hard she can feel the skin break beneath her front teeth.  
Dave is halfheartedly kicking at the raygun dispenser when Jade comes outside to see him. He smiles at her, but the emotion doesn’t reach his eyes.  
“I’m an idiot,” he tells her.   
Jade takes hold of his hand gently and tugs him away from the vending machine. “You’ll hurt your foot,” she says.  
He grunts. “Not as bad as you fucked up my arm.”  
“I barely remember that I’m hurt,” she tells him truthfully.  
“Still.” Dave huffs out a huge breath of air and sinks down onto the sand, resting his chin in his hands. Jade lowers herself next to him.  
“You got hurt because of me. Well, because of me and John, I guess, but still. I’m the one who planned this. And I planned it wrong.”  
“You didn’t plan anything wrong,” says Jade. “We’re here, aren’t we? And we’re alive, too.”  
“Barely.”  
“More than barely,” she tells him earnestly. “Dave, this is the most alive I’ve felt in months. It was worth everything just to get out here. We would have died back in that city, or been separated at the very least. I’m really glad you led us out here.”  
Dave is still staring out into the empty desert, his expression inscrutable behind his glasses. “I should’ve let Rose plan this. She’s better at strategy shit than me. Or even John or you. I’m not a leader, Jade.”  
Jade rests her head on his shoulder. “You don’t need to be one.”  
“But I was trying—“  
“And none of us know what we’re doing. We’re gonna have to depend on Doctor Death Defying and the rest of the Killjoys, Dave. It’s okay. You got us out here safely. That’s all we needed.”  
“You got hurt,” Dave exploded.  
Jade sits up. “We’re all going to get hurt. Party Poison’s been through the Draculoid facility three times, and Jet Star’s blind in one eye. We’ll get used to the pain.”  
She puts her hand on top of Dave’s, and he finally turns to look at her. “I just don’t want any of us to die,” he says so softly she can barely hear him.  
Jade risks a small smile. “Haven’t you heard?” she tells him. “Killjoys never die.”  
It’s enough to pull a laugh from somewhere inside Dave, and it’s enough for now.


	3. Got A Bulletproof Heart

“Please tell me I don’t have to wear something that ridiculous too,” Dave mutters.  
John nods and furrows his eyebrows as the figure skating towards them becomes more discernible. Not only is he gliding over the asphalt on a pair of roller skates, he—at least John thinks it’s a he, although the person definitely isn’t dressed like one—is wearing a pair of blue and white polka-dotted tights and a shirt that cuts off a good six inches above the man’s navel. His only pants seem to be a pair of black Speedos.  
“At least it definitely isn’t from Battery City,” says Rose.  
Jade pulls a face that they’ve all come to recognize as a burst of loud noise in Cherri Cola’s headphones, which are still pulled over her ears, and they all wait for her to relay the message. “I guess it works like a headset,” she says, tugging the headphones off and observing them curiously. “I mean, that guy just told me he sees us and he’s coming to get us. Or at least I think it was him.” She stands up on her tiptoes and begins to wave at him vigorously, yelling “Hello! Mr. Show Pony!”  
“Shh!” Dave pushes her arm out of the air. “Jade, we don’t know who that guy is! For all we know, he’s a rapist or something, and we’ve still got no idea how to shoot these damn guns—“  
“Hey, tumbleweeds!” the man calls in an exuberant voice, and Dave’s head falls into his palm.  
Show Pony rolls to a smooth stop in front of them and lifts his blue motorcycle helmet off his head. He looks young—maybe in his early twenties—but a blue bandanna obscures the lower half of his face, making it impossible to tell. His eyes look friendly, though, and it puts John a little more at ease.  
“Doctor D sent yours truly to help you set up shop,” he says brightly. “We’ve got just the place for you. Gorgeous old thing on the edge of Zone Four. The Rubberburners had twenty people in there a year ago, but they splintered and got dusted, so it’s empty now. Massive place, great location.”  
“There’s no one else in it?” asks Rose, a frown pulling at the corners of her lips.  
“Nope,” Show Pony affirms. “You can stay there as long as you want, until you find a crew to run with or if you’re just flying solo. Seems like you’ve got a ready-made group, though. Not gonna split up, are you?”  
“No,” Dave says immediately, grabbing hold of Jade’s hand.  
Show Pony laughs, and the sound sparks and explodes like the bang of a raygun. “Didn’t think so. Follow me, then. It’s a bit of a trek, but we can make it by nightfall.”  
*  
Twilight is falling when the vast warehouse detaches itself from the burning red horizon and begins to take shape. John thinks he literally cannot take another step. It feels as if he’s walked more in the past two days than in every other day of the rest of his life put together. Suffice it to say, it hurts a whole damn lot.  
But one moment the scenery is empty, and the next, the massive wooden stronghold is dominating the entire view. Show Pony’s endless stream of chatter cuts off in an exclamation as he points it out to his four followers, yelling, “That’s it! That’s where you’re staying!”  
“It’s kind of big,” Rose comments.  
Show Pony beams. “That’s the point, sugar!”  
The place is daunting and eerie. It looks abandoned. John doesn’t like it on first instinct.  
“Why don’t you go get settled in?” Show Pony suggests brightly. “I’ve gotta get back to the Doc—he wants me before nightfall. But give us a shout if you run into any issues, honey!” He claps Jade on the shoulder and skates off to the sound of the four kids yelling at him desperately to come back.  
“Why does this keep happening?” Rose sighs despondently.  
They’ve really got no other option than to see what Show Pony left them with, so Dave leads them into the warehouse, his gun out and his brow furrowed in concentration. It’s big, and dark, and very empty. John doesn’t know whether this is more relieving and unnerving.  
Jade is the first one to start to investigate. She finds the light switch, and a strip of dingy fluorescent lights flicker on over their heads. They cast a sickly pale sheen over the room.  
It’s even bigger on the inside than John expected, and to both his relief and his dismay, completely outfitted in furniture and weapons and everything it seems a large group of rebels would need to live. There’s a gun rack against one wall filled with every manner of weapons and dusty couches and tables are scattered around the space. An old TV with a crack running through its screen sits against one wall, and a much newer, bigger one is mounted opposite it. There’s a ladder running up one wall to a landing enclosed by a thin metal rail that juts out over the unbroken floor space.  
“Is Show Pony sure this place is actually abandoned?” Rose asks doubtfully.  
It certainly doesn’t look like it. It looks like a group of people left in a hurry but intended to come back. Suddenly, John’s mind floods with Show Pony’s words: “The Rubberburners had twenty people in there a year ago, but they splintered and got dusted, so it’s empty now.” And Cherri Cola had said there was a place on the edge of Zone Four that got “dusted out.”  
John thinks he knows what dusted means now.  
*  
They end up clustered around the gun rack after fifteen minutes, because as much as they hate to admit it, they’re defenseless save the few guns Dave hijacked from the BL/ind vending machine. These ones are much nicer, anyway—at least they’re colorful and not stark white. Rose picks up a bright yellow one with an orange sun on the side.  
“Screaming Sunshine,” she reads off the top of the barrel. “What does that mean? Do you think it’s the name of the gun or something?”  
“More like the name of the gun’s owner,” Dave says grimly. John doesn’t want to dwell on what Screaming Sunshine’s fate was.  
It’s harder to pick up the weapons once he realizes they all belong to dead rebels, but he eventually takes a small blue revolver without a name from the end of the rack and goes off in search of a place to sleep with his friends. The second floor, which seemed to be little more than a railing, actually opens onto eight bedrooms along both walls. The ends are taken up by two larger rooms—one that seems to be a hospital of sorts, and one that’s filled with battered targets and more guns. They were all messy and filled with painfully personal touches—a picture, a belt, an unfinished sketch or a novel with a bookmark halfway through lying on the floor next to an unmade bed under a thin layer of dust. It’s weird that John never knew these people, doesn’t even know their names, and yet he feels an overwhelming sense of loss now that they’re most likely dead. Everything got so much more real once he entered the desert. It isn’t a game—there are people dying for this cause.  
He knows it’ll be hard to fall asleep with these kinds of thoughts plaguing his mind. But after Rose finds a few cans of food for dinner and they scarf them down, cold and slimy, Jade is nearly asleep and their eyes are all heavy.  
“It’s not like there aren’t plenty of beds here,” Dave says. “The place’s supposed to be ours.”  
John wants to tell him how wrong it would feel to sleep in a dead Killjoy’s bed, but he knows it’s a weak and stupid argument. He can’t be so touchy if he wants to stay alive out here.  
None of them particularly like the idea, but they’re exhausted, too. Eventually, Jade and Rose take a room with two beds at the top of the ladder, and Dave and John find one that’s slightly emptier than the rest, across from the girls’. The layer of dust is deeper and there are almost no personal touches. The rebels in this room must have been dead for a long time.  
“Try to get some sleep, John,” Dave says as he strips off his dust-caked t-shirt. His back is covered with a layer of sweaty grime. John knows he’s probably equally disgusting under his own clothes. “I know you don’t like it out here, but you need rest.”  
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” John sighs. “It’s just creepy. People used to live here, and they’re dead now.” He slips between the cool sheets and shucks off his jeans, letting himself sink backwards onto the pillow.  
Dave lets out a long breath and turns off the light. A patch of moonlight pours in through the curtainless window, but Dave is a shadow, gliding between their beds.  
“People die every day, John,” says Dave softly. John rolls over to look at him. He’s sitting at the edge of his bed, chin cupped in his hands and his feet resting on the floor.  
“I know,” John replies. “But it’s worse, now that I know it could be us.”  
Dave falls asleep quickly, but John stares out the window at the moon-soaked waves of sand for what feels like hours until he finally passes out, images of bloody Roses and Daves riddled with gunshots and Jades in white body bags flashing across his mind.  
*  
When Karkat wakes up in the desert, he’s pissed.  
Really fucking pissed.  
By ‘pissed’, he isn’t drunk—though he’d gladly drink if there was any alcohol out here. He’s just raging, lividly mad. He’d been almost calm for a short period of time last night, but that had only lasted for as long as the tenuous peace before the Draculoids started coming after him. They were fast, and they had rayguns and motorcycles and genetic engineering, but on sand, Karkat found he was faster. Still, it took him nearly an hour to lose them, and by that time he was nearly ready to drop himself.  
He probably had dropped eventually, since he has no recollection of the sun rising in the sky. But it’s hot and disgusting as hell now without the moon’s shade. Grudgingly, he pulls himself to his feet, feeling the vertebrae pop one by one as he stretches.  
The desert is completely empty for as far as the eye can see, and he has no idea where he is. In other words, he is completely, royally screwed.  
“Fuck everything,” Karkat mutters to himself, and starts walking.  
*  
“Okay, what do we do now?” Rose asks.  
She only asks it because she knows it’s what everyone else is thinking. Nobody wants to voice it, but Rose had always been the sensible one who knows when things need to be said.  
When her question is only met with blank stares, she sighs impatiently. “I thought you were supposed to be excited about this,” she says.  
“You’re the smart one,” drawls Dave. “You come up with some ideas.”  
Rose rolls her eyes as he stretches his arms languidly. “And you’re the one who wanted to come out here in the first place.”  
Truthfully, the only reason she’d agreed to go along with Dave’s plan was because she knew something like this was going to happen. If Dave and John came out here on their own, they’d never be able to survive. They’re two headstrong, overly impulsive teenage boys who are incapable of thinking twice about anything. Jade’s smarter, but she can be too dreamy sometimes, and it’s gotten her in trouble before. Rose has always been the strategic one, and she loves her friends too much to let them run off into the desert without a plan and get killed. The only issue is that she doesn’t currently have a plan, either.  
“We could try to find other Killjoys,” Jade says hesitantly. “I mean, I don’t think we actually know what we’re supposed to be doing out here. What are we supposed to be doing?”  
“Living?” Dave suggests.  
“I know that, silly,” Jade giggles. “But besides that. The Killjoys all have a mission or something, right? They’ve at least got the radio station…”  
“I think their mission is staying alive, Jade,” says John.  
But Rose has to admit that Jade brings up a good point. They can’t spend the rest of their lives doing nothing.

“I think we fight,” she says hesitantly. She doesn’t want to say it, because she knows that as soon as she does, Dave will latch onto the idea and she’s not sure Dave should be fighting anyone. But it’s all she’s ever heard the Killjoys did.

Dave snorts. “With these?” He pulls his white raygun from his belt. “I’m the only one who knows how to shoot one.”

“And you barely know how,” Rose retorts.

John raises his hands in the universal gesture for ‘calm down.’ “Okay, I think we can all agree this was a pretty stupid idea,” he says. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than staying in Battery City. I think what we need is food and clothes. And to get any of that we need some kind of transportation. There’s got to be a car somewhere in the desert, right?”

“We don’t know how to drive,” says Rose.

“We can figure it out,” John answers. “Come on. It’s our only option, unless you want to sit around waiting for a guy in polka-dotted tights and a Speedo.”

*

Karkat’s mouth is as dry as the desert surrounding him, and his thoughts are as heated as the fires of hell. He kicks puffs of sand into the air, mustering as much anger as he can and releasing it on the ground. It’s got nowhere else to go—there’s nothing around him for miles.

This was a really fucking bad idea.

His leg is roaring at him to stop walking, but if Karkat sits down, he isn’t going to get up again. He’s running on pure, unadulterated hate by now. That, and the hope that somewhere in this godforsaken fucking wasteland of nothing there are other living human beings. At least he hasn’t run into any more Draculoids, because Karkat isn’t sure he can pull off another roundhouse kick to the chin like he did the night before.

He’s been wandering in more or less the same direction for the past few hours now—straight away from the city. He knows little about the Mojave Desert, but he does know that it’s separated into six Zones radiating out from the city like a bullseye target. Battery City is Zone Zero. He thinks he must be in Zone Two at least by now, but there’s no way to be sure. Either way, the rebels are fucking good at hiding, because he’s seen exactly shit but the highway.

Least I’m not dead, Karkat thinks. Least I’m not in Battery City.

Then his leg gives out, and he tumbles onto the golden sand in a heap of limbs and dripping maroon blood.

*  
“Holy fucking shit,” Dave breathes reverently.  
He walks forward, his hands outstretched almost as if he’s in a trance. It glimmers in the dusty sunlight, the sand covering its’ red paint not able to mask its’ true perfection. It’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen.  
Rose sighs impatiently. “It’s just a car,” she says.  
“It is absolutely not just a car,” Dave murmurs. “It’s a fucking Chevy Corvette ’68. It’s a miracle.”  
He reaches out, almost afraid that if he touches the car, it would crumble beneath his fingertips. But the handle of the door is cool and solid, and it opens with a slight tug. The keys are still in the ignition.  
Dave moans as the engine rumbles to life beneath him. He hasn’t been in a real car in what seems like forever, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t been fascinated by them like any boy his age was when he was younger. And this one was grade A, top of the line, choice fucking metal. He doesn’t even need to know how to drive to know that the car is made of pure fucking magic.  
“You gotta feel this,” he groans. “C’mon. It’s better than sex.”  
“You are so weird,” Jade giggles, but she hops in all the same.  
Rose rolls her eyes. “Come on, John. Let’s give them some privacy. I’m sure Dave needs some time alone…with his car.”  
She pulls John out of the detached garage by the arm, but Dave doesn’t miss his wink before he’s tugged out of the door. John Egbert was never the most subtle guy.  
Dave laughs. One of his hands lands on Jade’s leg and the other on the steering wheel.  
“Where should we go?” he asks, his leftover Texan accent slipping out accidentally in his excitement.  
Jade laughs and tosses her long black hair, the picture of vivacity. “Anywhere, as long as it’s with you.”


End file.
